


The Things That Could Have Been

by ThayerKerbasy



Series: Hell on Earth [8]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Minor Castiel/Dean Winchester, Minor Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Multiverse, The Empty (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-08-04 18:19:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16351724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThayerKerbasy/pseuds/ThayerKerbasy
Summary: Juliet just wanted to know why her former master had never come back, but had long accepted it was a mystery beyond solving.  She never expected answers to literally appear at her feet.





	The Things That Could Have Been

Juliet stood up from her wonderful bed and stretched. It was morning, or at least whatever time her master called morning, and as usual, she’d been guarding him while he slept. While he and Cas gathered fresh body coverings to take with them to the water room, she gave her bed one last sniff.

As much as Juliet loved her new master, she still sometimes missed her old master. Samoose fed her breakfast meats and played fetch, Eileen and Cas seemed to understand her well, though both in different ways, and her new master took her almost everywhere with him and made her feel wanted. She was well cared for in every possible way, and yet still she sometimes missed her old master.

Of course there was nothing to be done about it. Her former master had disappeared one day, never to return. If he had been able to come back to her, he would have, she was absolutely certain about that. All she could do was enjoy her time with her new people and hope her old master was okay.

Trotting along ahead of her master, Juliet scouted out the path to the wet room, checking the way for possible traps or enemies. Finding nothing, she sat on her hindquarters near the door and allowed her people to enter. For some reason, her master didn’t like her following him into the wet room, even though he usually enjoyed his time there. She didn’t like that he always came out smelling a little different than when he went in, but there was no arguing with his choice of scents.

With her charges busily filling the wet room with hot water, she waited. Juliet had a lot of experience with waiting. She was a good dog and would guard her people from any and all threats. Just because there was no hint of anything unusual around didn’t mean anything. Danger could lurk anywhere.

The wet room was just starting to fill with warm air-water when a Thing rolled across the floor. It was small, maybe human hand sized, and it wobbled when it rolled. There was nowhere it could have come from, except that the air held that by now familiar scent of the Bunker’s magic, slightly stronger than usual.

Curious, she leaned down and sniffed to see what smelled clung to it. What greeted her nose were the smells of smoke and Scotch and a lot of magic. Sniffing a bit closer revealed a hint of sulphur as well. She had just long enough to recognize her former master’s scent when the floor shifted and the Thing wobbled, touching her snout with a feeling like nothing she’d ever felt before. It was like a bop on the nose for doing something bad, then a weird stretching and a pop while everything around her felt all fuzzy.

When the world around her shed its fuzz, it still didn’t make any sense. Instead of the Bunker, she was in her former master’s throne room, surrounded by demons. Her former master sat on his throne, giving orders to the other demons. Despite her confusion, Juliet wagged her tail.

“Duke, I want you to head up a team focusing on the States. There’s plenty of resentment simmering there, and I want to take advantage of it while it’s still unfocused. Simmons, same thing in the UK. I think we’re maintaining a good average elsewhere, but Dar, I’d like you to look into what we can do to raise our numbers in South America. Let’s get those souls, people.”

He clapped his hands twice and the demons he named scurried out of the room. Being careful to avoid attention, Juliet moved a little deeper into the shadows so as to remain unnoticed while she jumped to a new location in the room. Her old master’s smoke form wasn’t the same as she remembered and she wanted a better look.

Behind a shelf, but off to the side of the throne, Juliet could watch between shelves without being seen. Her former master’s true self swirled with a very different feel to it, calmer, but more intense. It had a certainty to it, but it was strong and harsh where it had been soft before.

“Ava, I’d like you to be my liaison with the torturers. I’d like to know the status of Bela Talbot, birth name Abby, and Robert Singer. Find out how long they think it’ll be before those two are demonized. Feel free to lend a hand if you like. While you’re down there, check with R&D on the status of the Winchesters’ warding. The longer we keep them, the more irredeemable they become, and the less likely Heaven will want anything to do with them.”

Juliet’s ears flattened back on her head. Whoever that demon was, it looked like her old master, it mostly smelled like him, but it wasn’t him. The demon on the throne was cruel and cold. The master she knew was neither of those things.

She couldn’t bear to stay any longer, but she didn’t know how to go back. It was the wobbly Thing that had sent her to the strange place with the not-master but she had no idea how it worked or even where it was. What if she was stuck in the wrong place with the not-master forever?

Fortunately, her nose worked all on its own. Amid the small crowd of demons, the smell of sulphur was strong, as was that of smoke. Plenty of things smelled of magic, any one of which could have been the wobbly Thing. Besides the not-master on the throne, though, there was only one other Scotch smell in the room.

Sure enough, it was right where she had appeared, still wobbling somehow. Her heart full of sadness, missing her former master more than ever before, Juliet touched her nose to the Thing and braced herself against the bad stretchy fuzzy pop.

When the fuzziness was gone, she still wasn’t back in the Bunker Palace. Instead, she was outside a building that smelled like beer, in an alley that smelled like vomit. Rather than the crowd of demons she’d just left, the alley held only two. One, again, looked and smelled like her former master, but he was being held against a wall with the magic bone knife at his throat. The other looked and smelled like her new master.

Her loyalties feeling terribly divided, Juliet looked at her former master’s smoke form and nearly fell over. Not only was her former master’s true self looking soft and weak, but her new master had a smoke form, too, and it was a nasty thing. Demon New Master was probably the meanest thing she’d ever met.

“I’ve warned you before, Crowley. I don’t wanna work with you, I don’t wanna rule Hell, and I sure as fuck don’t want your lackeys following me. You brought this on yourself.”

“Wait, please, I’ll leave you alone. Let me go and I promise you, I’ll be gone. I won’t bother you in any way ever ag—”

Juliet whimpered as the blade sliced through flesh and made that crackling demon-killing sound. Neither of them was her master and she’d already stayed too long. Her whimper drew the attention of Demon Not New Master, so before she could end up like Not Former Master, she nosed the Thing again.

She’d forgotten to brace herself against the world-folding weirdness, but it seemed a little easier with familiarity. Before Juliet could get truly disoriented, the Thing dropped her in the back of a moving car beast. In fact, it looked and smelled exactly like the Impala car beast. She joyously barked and growled at the oncoming car beasts that dared approach, and they all ran away without even trying to fight.

In the front of her transportation, what smelled like her former master rode alongside what smelled like her new master, but she couldn’t be sure. She’d left her new master in the getting wet room, but the wobbly Thing didn’t seem to have any rules about where it could send her.

_There’s a fucking hellhound in my back seat,_ said a voice that was somehow all around her.

While Juliet was still trying to locate the source of the voice, a different voice right beside her said, _Tell me something I don’t know, Baby. I thought Crowley’s hellhound died ages ago._

Died? Juliet didn’t die, but her master did have a different ‘hound before she was spawned.

_I don’t think you belong here — did you say your name was Juliet? Yeah, Crowley hasn’t had a hellhound in years, Juliet._

The voice from all around her sounded kind in its own way, but the other voice had called it Baby. It didn’t take much to put the pieces together, and what she came up with was disturbing. Car beasts weren’t supposed to talk.

_Yeah, well, neither are you, furball,_ said the voice beside her. _While it’s kinda nice having someone else who can hear us, you definitely don’t belong here._

_Coleman’s right. Do you have any way of getting back where you came from?_

She’d tried that twice already, but the Thing kept bringing her to the wrong places.

_Then maybe you need to figure out why,_ said the everywhere voice that was probably Baby.

It was another puzzle. Juliet was good at puzzles if she had enough time to think them through.

_Okay yeah,_ said the one Baby had called Coleman, _but if it’s a puzzle, you need more pieces, so you should probably try the thing again._

They were just trying to get rid of her, but she couldn’t be offended when she was the one who’d dropped in on them. Concentrating her thoughts on a friendly farewell, she twisted around until she was able to bump her snout against the Thing on the seat where she sat. The last thing she was aware of before everything went fuzzy were complaints about how loud she was and how much she was knocking Coleman and maybe scratching Baby’s interior.

It was a relief to arrive in a busy place that smelled of coffee and sweet things, where there were no bodiless voices. It was very confusing to her nose, though. There were so many people, it took a moment for Juliet to isolate the individuals.

Sunshine/magic/that smell before it rains Cas was making tea while her maybe-new-master was talking. “I really wish we didn’t have to stock this pumpkin spice crap. Pumpkin pies, sure, but whoever thought pumpkin goes in everything was so fucking wrong.”

Her maybe-former-master was in the room past the one she was in, but he smelled different somehow. Samoose sat at a table in the corner with what looked and smelled like magic/tea Rowena. There was no scent of Eileen on Samoose at all.

That last bit was all Juliet needed to know she was in the wrong place. She nosed the Thing without hesitation. No matter how good things smelled, she didn’t want a place without books/beer/gunpowder/Samoose Eileen.

Trying to get more information for her puzzle, Juliet decided to leave as soon as she was sure she was in the wrong place. She found a place where her former master was good friends and hunting partners with Cas but didn’t have a ‘hound. There was a place where her former master wore the form of a smiling, grey-haired old woman. There was even a place where the people she cared about were all animals. Her former master was a small black bat, her new master was a squirrel, and Samoose was an actual moose. As she nudged the Thing again, she couldn’t help but wonder what sort of animal Cas would have been.

When she showed up in another version of her former master’s throne room, she decided it was a good place to stop and think. She had some pieces, but she needed to assemble them.

The only thing each place had in common was her former master. Well, that made sense, since the Thing had always smelled like him. But every single place had been wrong in some way. She wanted—

With a start, Juliet realized that she didn’t really know what she wanted. Did she want to go home or did she want to be wherever her former master had gone? She wanted both. Maybe the Thing couldn’t send her where she wanted to go until she figured out where she wanted to be.

She didn’t want to give up any of her people. Cas, Samoose, Eileen, and her new master were all important to her, but so was her former master. The difference was, she knew where the others were, but her former master was still a mystery.

Deciding that she could always touch the Thing again if she chose wrong, Juliet took the time to focus her full concentration on everything she remembered about her former master. Not just the smell of him — which was the smell of the Thing and all she’d thought of before when touching it — but also the sound of his voice, the look of his true self, and the feel of his hands when he used to pet her. When she thought she had the full memory of him in her mind, she nosed the Thing.

There was no bop on the nose, only the feeling of being stretched while the world went fuzzy until it went pop, and then things unfuzzed again to reveal…nothing. Everywhere she looked was an endless field of nothingness with only herself and the Thing, which wobbled silently on a slightly squishy nothing floor. Even the smells were gone, the only actual smells being herself and the Thing.

In a place with no possible distractions, Juliet wondered how she could have gotten it so very wrong. She told the Thing exactly what she wanted and it took her to a place without any of the people that mattered to her. It hadn’t bopped her on the nose, but what it did do was so much worse.

Lacking any other options, she was about to try again when some of the nothing moved. There was no better way to think of it than that, though she tried because nothing shouldn’t have been able to move, but it did. It formed a human-like shape, but stopped before it looked truly human. It was like a person made of nothing.

“You don’t belong here,” said the nothing. “The Empty is only for demons and angels and you, little pup, are neither.”

Juliet gathered and focused her thoughts, like she had with Baby and Coleman, and barked at the people-shaped nothing. She barked to say, _I’m not afraid of you, Nothing Person. I nosed a Thing and I’ve seen lots of different Places, so I know you have my maybe-former-master. I don’t want to be a Bad Dog, but if you don’t take me to him I’ll have to bite you._

The nothing person laughed. “Oh, I would love to see you try, but, fun fact: you don’t belong here. You’re a living being, more or less, and this is no place for the living. Soon enough, the nothing will claim you, too, and then you’ll get to see where all the little hellhounds go when they die.”

There was no way for her to know if he was telling the truth or not, but even if he was, Juliet didn’t want to leave without knowing if her former master needed to be rescued. It was difficult, but she thought hard at the nothing again. _Show me the one I came to see. If he’s safe, I’ll leave._

“I’m going to have to hold you to that promise,” said the nothing. “You’re keeping me from my sleep and I want you gone.”

The nothing person waved a nothing arm across the nothing floor and it was like a blanket was pulled back to reveal her former master sleeping soundly. Tail wagging, Juliet bounded across the nothingness to lick his face, fully expecting him to wake up like her new master did whenever she licked him. Instead, he only shifted a bit, rolling onto his side and pulling the blanket of nothing back up to cover him more fully.

Juliet whined at the nothing, attempting to convey her confusion without all the difficult words. In response, the nothing person patted her head. “He died, little one. This is what remains of what he once was. If it makes you feel any better, he’ll sleep in peace for all eternity. No fear, no pain, no sorrow, only peace. I know that you know full well just what a good deal that is for him. When’s the last time you can remember him being truly happy, hmm?”

Though she wanted nothing more than to try to wake him again, Juliet did as the nothing asked, and the more she thought, the more she could see it was right. Her former master had been happy more than once, but it was always a small happiness. There had always been a great many unhappy things tainting every small happiness. He’d fought against them for so long, but in the end, the unhappiness won. Waking him to face those things again would have been cruel.

Whimpering, Juliet lay down next to her former master and considered staying until the nothing killed her. Instead, she breathed in the smell of him and said goodbye.

“He dreams of you sometimes, you know,” said the nothing person. “Not always, but sometimes. You’re one of his happier memories.”

It wasn’t what she wanted, but it would have to do. Juliet had people she cared about waiting for her, and though she wanted her former master to come with her, it was more important that he was happy. On impulse, she licked the nothing person’s hand, which, of course, tasted like nothing.

The nothing person seemed to melt a little. “Oh fine! Go on, go back and live your happy little life, and when you die you can come back here if you want. Is that what you want?”

There it was again. What did she want? With another whine, she tilted her head to the side and thought as hard as she could, _Can I decide later?_

The nothing person threw its hands up. “Yes, yes, fine, whatever. I do suggest you make up your mind before you die, however. I don’t imagine the current Death will look too kindly on uncertainty, so give it some thought before it matters. Now get going before I’m forced to send you to your final destination now.”

With one last glance at her former master, Juliet turned and walked away from him, the nothing swallowing up the sound of her footsteps. The Thing was right where she’d left it, as near as she could tell, though she hadn’t counted the steps she’d taken away from it. Closing her eyes and holding her home in her thoughts, she let her nose guide her down to the Thing until she was touching the scent.

Even though she couldn’t see it, she could feel herself being pulled through the nothing, stretched until she felt flat and then puffed back up with a pop. When she opened her eyes, Juliet was back in the Bunker Palace in the hallway outside the slightly warm getting wet room. It was like she’d never left, except for the wobbly Thing on the floor in front of her.

Just as she thought that, the Thing wobbled away from her down the hall until it bumped into the wall and disappeared. Juliet couldn’t think why the Bunker had given it to her in the first place, but she was glad it had. Knowing was so much better than not knowing, even though the knowing was sad.

She heard the sound of footsteps approaching from the other direction before she smelled the person they belonged to, though when she caught their scent, Juliet’s tail wagged on its own. Before long, Samoose rounded the corner and grinned when he saw her. “Heya girl! Dean and Cas taking too long in the shower again? I just got back from a run and I really want a shower, but not if they’re in there. C’mon back outside and we can play some fetch.”

Juliet didn’t really think her master needed a guard when he was with Cas, so she didn’t feel bad about leaving her post. She could have shadow-stepped directly outside, but after all of her travels, it was nice to walk with one of her people. Putting her paws on Samoose’s chest, she stood and licked his cheek. She knew where she belonged and it was with her people. Her happy things.

**Author's Note:**

> It's Coldest Hits time again! I didn't think I was going to be able to participate this month, but I wrote this all in a single day, and if any of you have any idea how slowly I write, that's saying something. The theme this month was [Infinite Universes](http://spncoldesthits.tumblr.com/post/179076887030/spncoldesthits-infinite-universes-october), and I'm sure you've noticed I'm not much of an alternate universes kind of guy. Upon further thought, it seemed perfect for Juliet, so I hope the folks subscribed to this series don't mind Juliet taking a little step away from the rest of her people for a bit.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Even though this is for Coldest Hits, comments and kudos are always appreciated.


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